D&D 5E Boy, that escalated quickly...

[Hussar]

Just adding a later thought, because this is bugging me.

I used the term pixel bitching quite deliberately. It seems, at least from my chair, that unless we ask exactly the right questions at exactly the right time, in exactly the right order, we never get anywhere. We extensively tried to gather information about the manor house that we were going to. Not once was it mentioned that the manor house is guarded 24/7 by a dozen elite warriors who constantly patrol. Don't you think that's a bit of a detail that just maybe, might come up in conversation? That this might be a detail that the players might kinda need to know before making any plans?

And this happens every time. We don't, apparently, ask exactly the right questions, so, we come up with plans based on the information we have available, and these plans fail. Every time.

Yup, we got over to the peninsula. Granted, we could have simply taken a boat over at night and done exactly the same thing. It's not like getting there was the big challenge. There were muliple ways to arrive at the wall of the manor. But, once at the manor, the scenario was set up so that we had zero chance of success. Even had we succeeded in the check we failed, we simply would have been forced to keep making checks until we failed. And we would always fail.

At least, that's what it feels like to me. Nothing we do has the slightest chance of success because we never have enough information to actually make informed decisions. Things like, I dunno, hearing a rumour in the bar where we are information gathering that the guy who can recognise us arrived here last week and is now up in the castle. Maybe the wizard who was supposed to be long gone by now, at least according to the information we had - his house was abandoned and no one knew where he went - wasn't in the first floor, two doors away from the group. Maybe both of these NPC's were in the upper part of the castle, giving the group the chance to actually spend some time learning the lay of the land and exploring before the midden hit the windmill.

But, the scenarios, as written, are pretty much written to force us to fail. There's simply no chance of success here. So, yeah, I'm pretty damn frustrated.

/edited to add

I did find this recently, which made me giggle and is probably apropos:

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't want to get bogged down too much in the details, but here's the thing - for every "failure" you have tallied, I can see many successes. You see the failures as catastrophic and constant and you either ignore the successes, or write them off as insignificant (forex, you say that getting to the Rich Folks' District was not "the big challenge," but it very much could have been. Take the boat over and get stopped at the docks or have a searchlight shone on us; sneak in with disguises and get questioned at length, etc., etc.).

I'm not disputing your experience, but the curious phenomenon is that I'm sitting in the same table and playing the same game and having a very different - and much more positive - experience from precisely the session. And your experience is independent of the DM - in the last session, I was a player alongside you. It's like a textbook example of negativity bias (or possibly some sort of positivity bias on my part, or maybe both!), and what's interesting to me is finding out why that is happening (and maybe how to counter it, in your case, since you seem to not having a lousy time).

I don't see these failures as catastrophic. I don't feel that crucial information is being withheld from us. I don't think that what's happened has been unfair at all. I don't think our choices are being marginalized. I don't even know that the "the party somehow gets away with their plan perfectly" result would be any more of an interesting gameplay scenario.

What's the difference, there?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I did find this recently, which made me giggle and is probably apropos:

That bear is in for the surprise of its life- that is the BEST, MOST CUNNINGLY disguised Mimic I've ever seen!

 

[Hussar]

Complications are fine. That's groovy and interesting. Catastrophic failure of every single plan is not.

Remember here, you started this thread. You noticed that we were failing before I even mentioned anything. So, it's not like this is all in my head. It's just very frustrating that we spend all this time at the table, trying to avoid exactly the thing you started this thread about - massive combats where the entire location is coming down on us at the same time, and we've failed to do so five times in a row now.

It's not like this is a kick in the door style of group either. Every scenario has been approached with a fair degree of circumspection. And, in scenarios where failure isn't guaranteed, we do find moderate success. We entered the swamp lair with all the baddies, took the road less traveled, made friendly with allies and resolved the scenario - all without the entire place crashing down on our heads. Just as one example.

What I don't understand is how you can consider last session a success. We were caught ten feet into the manor. We didn't even have a single round of actions before we were caught. It was, ok, let's jump the wall close to a door so we can get under cover as quickly as possible, wait until the patrols are far away, and ... oops, caught. And that's pretty much the way every single scenario has gone. Futz about for however much time and then as soon as we make a single "mistake", everything goes pear shaped.

Go into the wizard's lair, search things out, touch one chest and poof every encounter area lights up and attacks all at the same time.

Discover information about the flying castle, find a means of entering the castle and, only the next morning discover not only is the one guy who can identify us in the next room, but, the wizard one PC has been searching for for seven levels is two doors down too. Shock, things go pear shaped.

There's no point in doing any information gathering - all it nets is general information and no details. Any plan lasts about thirty seconds until it blows up in our faces.

We might as well just kick in every door and roll initiative, because, all we're doing is delaying the inevitable.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, looks like I'm talking to myself a bit here. Promise, this is my last post until we get a few more replies.

Just to provide a bit of context. The group has been playing together for about four years now. Some of us a bit more, but, IIRC, the current line up has been playing for 4 years. And this is the first time, I think, I've expressed frustration, and, even then, the extent of that expression was limited to about two sentences in the last session which amounted to "Jesus, not again??!" So, it's not like there's a huge, insurmountable problem going on here.

We are currently alternating between two campaigns, Tyranny of Dragons and a home-brew Dragonlance game. Both are tons of fun. I think the biggest reason I've been frustrated is because we've had a string of very similar scenarios between the two campaigns, more or less back to back. In the Dragonlance game, we've assaulted one home followed by assaulting a second home, both within very short order. In the ToD game, we assaulted a way station held by cultists, a castle held by cultists and then a flying castle held by cultists. I'm seeing a fair degree of similarity here. And, as I said earlier, we had very similar outcomes in every scenario. I think that if these scenarios were interspersed with other scenarios, it probably wouldn't bother me at all. It's just that its been back to back to back. I'm very sure this will blow over in short order as other scenarios start to surface.

On a side note, another issue had recently come up that was mostly my own damn fault. I made some spectacularly poor character design choices and beat myself around the head and shoulders with a big arsed nerf bat. Which meant I had a few sessions of trying to convince the DM that the problem existed and then a few more sessions of fixing the problem. Which probably hasn't helped my attitude any considering this was going on pretty much at the same time as we started this run of similar scenarios.

It's been kind of a perfect storm. Dissatisfaction with the character I made coupled with very frequent failures has probably made me over react. To be fair, I don't think it's spilled over into actual play. It's been kind of nice to vent here. Helps me put things into perspective. One thing that I don't like about playing online is it's very hard to talk about the game outside of game time.

 

[Savevsdeath]

I'll note something here that is a big problem with a *lot* of systems, not just 5e.

Scenario: PCs are trying to sneak into suspicious mansion. 2 guards are awake and somewhat alert, if they raise the alarm the PCs are in big trouble.

The problem is that *every* PC has to make their stealth check! Odds are they aren't all stealthy, but even if they are, the odds of *every* one making their check is quite low... As a result, sneaking in attempts are best left to a single stealth specialist. It's frustrating because it means the stealth option is almost off the table...

5e has handy rules for group checks, but for some reason i've found that every DM i've played the game with flat refuses to allow them for stealth. As someone who professionally snuck up on people i intended to kill with a group of heavily armed and armored fellows, and did it successfully more often than not even in broad daylight with enemies that were ready for trouble and alert, I would like to say this is silly. You absolutely CAN learn to move stealthily as a team and compensate for eachothers' mistakes. But most people don't realize this, because they've never tried it and their only experiences with it are fictional ones.

Edit: Someone beat me to mentioning this. Also, i agree 120% with Hussar. When PC's put in the work, you as a DM bend over backwards and grab your ankles to let their hard work pay off. Always. Why? Because they are PC's and those other guys are not. They are not the stars of the show. They are at-best brief speedbumps who will appear once and then vanish. Them seeming awesome and competent doesn't make the game better in the long run and create epic tales. The PC's doing so, does.

 

[S'mon]

Them seeming awesome and competent doesn't make the game better in the long run and create epic tales.

It does - maybe 20% of the time. Like the start of Conan the Barbarian where Doom's Riders wipe out the village; it establishes a threat much more gripping than incompetent mooks who always fail. Likewise the start of Star Wars where the Imperials storm the Rebel ship; competent NPC villains are more exciting.

But I agree with your main point - if the PCs put the effort in they deserve a good chance to
succeed, like Conan & co preparing the ground and beating the Riders of Doom at the Battle of
the Mounds.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And, in scenarios where failure isn't guaranteed, we do find moderate success.

Again, you have the presumption of ill intent on the part of the DM - that we've somehow predetermined your failure. Plans fail sometimes. Our plan to sneak in the back could have been more cautiously executed. Your plan to smoke out the house could've taken into account the windows. Why does every failure have to be that someone is out to screw you? Can't it just be that the plan failed as plans often do? When a trap goes off and the party is split, do you expect nothing to happen? When the guards are alerted, can't it just be the guard's job to be on alert?

What I don't understand is how you can consider last session a success. We were caught ten feet into the manor. We didn't even have a single round of actions before we were caught. It was, ok, let's jump the wall close to a door so we can get under cover as quickly as possible, wait until the patrols are far away, and ... oops, caught.

Success: We got into the Bad Guy City
Success: We fought off a group of Bad Guys who are looking for us.
Success: We found a place to sleep
Success: We had TWO ways of getting into the Rich Folk's District
Mixed Success: Our scouting attempt did not alert other guards
Success: We didn't ruin the party that got us into the Rich Folk's District
Success: We got to the mansion on the empty streets
Success: We got over the wall
Setback: We were noticed.

Our storyline goal is still entirely intact, so we haven't failed at our goal yet.

You noticed that we were failing before I even mentioned anything. So, it's not like this is all in my head. It's just very frustrating that we spend all this time at the table, trying to avoid exactly the thing you started this thread about - massive combats where the entire location is coming down on us at the same time, and we've failed to do so five times in a row now.

I didn't notice you were "failing," I noticed that often you'd let some minion escape to warn everyone else and that this seemed from your perspective to be something you didn't have agency over. You still won all those scenarios. Sometimes not without getting beat up pretty good or having a few costly mistakes, but sometimes also with going around robbing someone blind just because they're not actively attacking you. We haven't "failed" to interrogate the noble we're here to interrogate, we just had a complication.

 

[TwoSix]

 

[Raunalyn]

I don't know that I'd support that assertion. I mean, we made it into the Rich District without incident, for one.



I dunno the DC, but I felt like we had a fair chance to see the patrol as a party. We could've spent time watching the whole grounds. We could've made a distraction. We could've tried to have a talk, or to take out one patrol at a time.



I wouldn't characterize the two hours of RP as "pixel bitching" (my understanding of pixel bitching in a tabletop game is that it's about poking everywhere for solutions/checking everywhere for traps, not playing dress-up and going to parties). I also didn't feel like it was a waste of time.

I wonder if it's a play goals thing. I totally feel like that session delivered on what I wanted from D&D when I sat down to play it. Did you feel otherwise?

I'd like to clarify something here, since it is me who is the DM who is being bitched about

I gave the entire party ample opportunity to tell me what their plans were. Good planning got you past a heavily fortified position (a gate to a small peninsula that was heavily...and I do mean HEAVILY...fortified). That good planning got you through the gate without incident. Role-playing did that...not roll playing.

The party had more opportunity. Several times, I asked what the group was doing. No one thought to sneak out and scout the mansion you guys were trying to invade. That's cool...not everyone would think of that. But one detail that Hussar failed to mention was that they were trying to sneak into a mansion on a heavily fortified peninsula. Oh, and let's forget to mention that this mansion just so happened to be the command center for the occupying army that has invaded the city.

Yes, there were guards. Yes, they were awake, even though it was extremely late at night. Yes, there was a chance of failure. Yes, I was nice and let you spot the patrols before you jumped in. And yes, I designed the encounter knowing that you guys would be fresh, there was a chance that you would fail to break in, and knowing that the encounter would be challenging as opposed to deadly if you failed to sneak in.

Edited to add something:

I was keeping a running tally of all of the successes and failures you guys made on your various skill checks throughout the night. They knew you were in town. They knew that it would be likely you would be coming. They prepared, too. Things in my game don't happen in a vacuum.

Perspective, please.